Interests:Diving and underwater photography of course with a little rebreathers, cave diving, marine science and natural history thrown in.

Posted 24 July 2018 - 08:15 AM

Back in the day when I shot with film (Nikon F3 and F4), my three primary lens for wide angle work were my Nikon 24 f2, 18 f2.8 and 16mm fisheye. For big animals like sharks, sea turtles, etc., was the Nikon 24mm, for reef and wreck (with and without divers)and splits it was the 18mm behind a 8-inch dome port with a 20mm extension ring. It worked really back than, as I produced a lot of covers for both Skin Diver and Sport Diver magazine. Nowadays, find that that are several newer model wide angle zooms from both Nikon and Tokina that work even better optically than that lens.

Interests:Diving and underwater photography of course with a little rebreathers, cave diving, marine science and natural history thrown in.

Posted 24 July 2018 - 10:50 AM

No diopter's were used with either the 18mm or the 24mm, just simply (through a little bit of trial and error) figured out the distance the port needed to be in front of the lens. I am sure with a Seacam Supperdome little (10mm, 20mm at the most) to no extensions will be needed.

I used this lens a while back but on the DX format. Sold it before getting an FX camera. I used it mainly with a WP and a diopter to allow closer focusing.

From some old (> 10 years old) Seacam data: Harald (from price list) has the 18D and SD used with no PVL whereas Stephen Frink (from his website) shows a PVL25. This may have been before the PVL20 came out. Reading this info off my old computer (not the one being used right now).

ps. I had this lens at the same time that I had the RS 18mm lens. Looking at both at both ends (front and back) they appeared identical to me. I was not happy about this (the RS lens) as I was expecting a relatively compact water contact optic rather than what I got, which was a dedicated 8" hemispherical port and topside lens. It was OK on film.

I to shot that lens a lot with film (f3) as well as the 24mm. No diopters. I had custom extension rings made for each lens with my aquatic housings. I worked the specs thru a guy at Nikon back in the day on finding the exact extension length . There where 4 of us that had all the same gear and made 4 sets of rings one for each for these lens-15mm-18mm 24mm 28mm and a 35mm.

switched to Subals in the F5 days

Those 4 divers were

Tom Campbell

Bob Vaughn

Kelly Micheal

and myself

Mark Cortright

Edited by onokai, 01 August 2018 - 08:57 PM.

Subal ND800- Housing
Way to many strobes to list
subal ND800 setup with Ikelite 161 strobes
Still a film divasourus at heart in a digital world